


The Recollection

by Pass1onAndH0pe



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 02:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5521340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pass1onAndH0pe/pseuds/Pass1onAndH0pe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My take on how Sans, Papyrus, and Gaster are related presented through stories with Sans having nightmares. Speech in [ ]'s means they're talking in WingDings which I headcanon as skeleton monsters' native language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Recall

Night time. His bed was bare like he preferred. The room was bathed in total darkness, not that Sans liked it that way, but because he had always been too lazy to fix the flashlight inside the lamp. Eventually, he felt sleep take him from his uneasiness and into a deeper darkness.

[ **SANS** ]

A voice called out from the darkness.

[ **DO YOU RECALL THOSE TIMES?** ]

Sans tried to ignore the voice. It wasn't working.

[ **I WANT…TO RECALL…PLEASE.** ]

Why did it have to be his turn? Why couldn't some other Sans take the job? He hated it. He hated squirming and never being able to slip away.

[ **SANS.** ]

Sans was launched from the deep darkness into memory.

 

"[Dad, what's a funny bone]?" Asked Sans inquisitively with a book in front of him. It was the joke book Gaster had gotten him for his birthday. The little skeleton hadn't become bored of reading and rereading it yet. Gaster reasoned Sans wouldn't stop until he understood every joke written inside. The little one was a tenacious learner which made him smile more often than not.

"[Think of it as… A way to describe a monster's sense of humor.]"

"[Sense of humor?]"

"[What they think is something to laugh at.]"

Sans looked back down at the book. The grin on his face became a frown as he tried to comprehend the concept. It would be a while before he fully understood the jokes inside its pages.

Gaster smiled and continued working on the calculations of his newest experiment. A few beeps later and the machine in front of him hummed to life. Inside the tube of liquid a floating form began to take shape.

The activity caught Sans's attention and he looked up from the tile floor.

"[Dad?]"

"[Don't worry. In a few days, you'll have a baby brother.]"

"[Brother?]"

 

Sans recoils against the recollection taking place. He doesn't want to be, but he's thrown into another one.

 

Electricity thrummed through the lights in New Home college's library. The Underground had become a happier place since Gaster, the newly established royal scientist, figured out how to combine the mountain's geothermal energy and magic to create electricity. It was for this accomplishment Asgore gave him the title.

Sans walked up to the center reception desk and took a right heading in the direction of the meeting rooms. He passed a few monsters on the way. There was one he vaguely recognized as being a yellow monster in his class who liked to keep to herself.

Sans knew where his father would be, even if Gaster himself never made it clear. In the back of his mind, he wondered what this was about. It wasn't often these days Sans got to see his father to talk about anything other than work. The older skeleton was always working on the projects concerning souls and energy.

"Yes, it was nice to see you as well. [Ah, Sans! How is your brother?]" Gaster waved off a few professional looking monsters as Sans approached the meeting room. He shoved a hand in one pants pocket feeling the usual awkwardness inside him that rose whenever his father asked about Papyrus. The other waited with a patient smile.

"[He's fine, but he says you better come home early tonight. Can't sleep without those bedtime stories, y'know?]"

"[I'll do my best. Now, about why I called you here.]" Gaster's face relaxed from the smile as he continued, "[Sans, you're going into college soon and, seeing as to how interested you are in science, I spoke with the staff about a work study program at my lab.]"

"[Your lab? You mean the one you got being a royal scientist?]"

The monster had two labs to work at. When Sans first heard about it he sarcastically referred to it as a joyous occassion. Of course, he only said it that way when he was alone.

"[Yes! Don't you think it a wonderful opportunity?]"

Sans mulled over the idea with a frown. While it would be interesting to see his father work again, it still felt weird. Everything felt weird about his life lately. For instance, Sans knew he was supposed to love his brother, but there was a disconnection in his mind. He could look at the other, smile, and joke with him on the outside. Internally something else brewed keeping him from feeling any sort of connection. It was something he couldn't tell if his father knew or cared about knowing.

Maybe working at the lab away from Papyrus left at home would be a good idea.

 

Sans really hated what was coming next. He knew too much already.

 

"SANS? WHERE'S DAD?" Papyrus heard him walk in and came to investigate. Normally the two of them came as a pair and late at night. The house's interior remained dark until the younger skeleton turned on a light. Sans had walked inside and sat down hard on the couch too out of it to turn any lights on.

Sans didn't respond to the question at first. It took Papyrus going over and sitting down beside him to bring him out of his daze. _The noise…_

"Papyrus…"

"SANS, WHERE IS DAD?"

"Papyrus, Dad can't…can't come home anymore."

Silence ensued between them. Sans felt Papyrus's stare, and he turned to look at him. The usual bright grin filled with determination to face the day had dimmed. It managed to tug at his heart. To think for years his father had worked with souls tirelessly to find out the power behind such a smile.

"Sans is Dad okay?" It was a small shock to hear Papyrus lower his voice.

"he's…Papyrus i… i promise." The last word caught Papyrus's attention more than the change in his brother's speech. He knew Sans wasn't one for making promises, even small ones.

"i promise i'll, i'll read your bedtime stories every night. enough to make up for Dad. i promise i'll protect you. that i'll…for Dad…promise i'll-"

Papyrus pulled Sans into a tight embrace causing him to stop trying to speak further. He wrapped his arms around his younger brother and came to realize how weak his arms felt. _Watching Gaster fall and become bits…_

Papyrus pointed out in a quiet voice Sans was crying.

 

The memories burned Sans inside of what felt like his soul. The noise of Gaster's distorted voice began to fill up and echo around him. The voice was cutting deeper with every word. Little memories passed by in a rush of images. Magic training, studying, moving, blocking out these memories-

Sans woke up on his bare bed sweating profusely. Sensing his body's fearful state, Sans could feel magic pulsating through him. This caused his pupils to cast an eerie blue glow in the room that remained dark. It was dark like the abyss his father had become scattered across.

One final phrase was spoken before Sans was left alone.

[ **I'M SORRY.** ]


	2. Redacted

Sans flipped over the blueprints again rereading the passages. No matter how many times he studied the diagrams something didn't add up. He understood everything, but there was still a missing component to the machine. Some component he'd never be able to get his hands on.

Even if he understood the fatal truth, Sans kept coming back down to the lab and trying again and again. Papyrus's lectures must be getting through to him in some way.

Sans leaned on one elbow continuing to stare at the blueprint. He felt drowsiness settling in his bones, and he didn't feel like fighting it. Something about the lab… No, maybe it was the blueprints themselves that made him feel comfortable falling asleep sitting there. The faint familiarity in the handwriting, perhaps, caused him to feel safe enough to slip into slumber.

When Sans did sleep he could hear the voice again.

[ **RECALL** ]

Sans doesn't want to remember anything else. He wants to sleep.

[ **SOMETHING MISSING-** ]

Sans twitches involuntarily against the grating voice.

[ **SOMETHING REDACTED.** ]

Sans opened his eyes to a vivid memory.

 

He followed Gaster deeper into the lab granted to him upon becoming Royal Scientist. Inside its corridors, there were machines with uses yet to be explained to the younger skeleton. He figured they might never be explained considering his scientific specialty might not involve them.

"[Here we are. Asgore asked me to design a weapon to be used in case of warfare with the humans. It was something he required when I became the royal scientist,]" explained Gaster walking through an automatic door once it had slid open. Beyond it, Sans saw four large machines plugged full of wires. The way they resembled large skulls sort of unnerved him and he shuffled his feet.

"[where did you come up with such a _skull cracking_ good design?]" He asked making a point to look over at Gaster for a reaction. He received a chuckle in response to the bad joke.

"[I asked Asgore if I could use his own skull for the design. In my opinion, there is nothing better to represent power than the highest ranking monster in existence,]" Gaster said as he approached one of the skulls hanging in suspension from the ceiling. He pulled from a lab coat pocket a pair of what looked like mittens and slipped them on.

Sans listened as his father explained in frank terms how he managed to combine magic and the mechanizations of the machine to make this weapon of war he called the Gaster Blaster.

"[Since it's only in the early stages, I have constructed it to where only our type of skeletal magic will work with it. That includes you, Papyrus, and I.]" He went on to say pressing a few buttons on a panel. The skull hummed to life in response and began to warm up.

The mentioning of his brother's name caused Sans to wince internally. When the familiar strange feeling started welling up he pushed it aside. Lately, he always ended up brooding later by himself about the feeling. Mostly about how wrong it felt.

Gaster gestured forwards summoning his magic. The blue and orange glow enveloped his eyes temporarily before appearing on his covered hands. Sans distantly remembered when he was little he wanted so badly to be able to have the orange mixed with his natural blue.

"[The _ahem_ mittens have sensors inside of them to make the link between the user and Blaster much stronger than simply trying to possess the Blaster itself with magic,]" Gaster explained gesturing again. The magic from his hands leapt for the machine, and the Blaster moved forwards until it hovered close beside him. "[Now if you'll follow me, I would like to show you a field test.]"

"[is that all i'm here for is a field test?]"

"[Partially. I want you to start training to use it.]" Gaster said the last sentence as he exited the room. The Blaster following him became even more ominous to Sans. The skeleton had never really given much thought to fighting with the humans, Hell _anyone_ , before. Combat wasn't exactly his strong suit, far as he knew.

Passing through a corridor, they came to a room where the opposite wall was scorched. The remains of what could be a training dummy also lie there.

"[Once I demonstrate I'll hand over control.]"

Gaster held forth his hand, and the Blaster aligned over his shoulder. There was a surge of magic, one passing to the other, and the Blaster split open letting forth a beam of bright light. Sans barely watched it cross the room and blast the remains of the dummy to dust.

This lead to Sans putting on the mittens, oversized as they were, and reactivating the Blaster from its idle mode. Upon summoning his magic, and casting it over the Blaster, he felt the weight of the machine pull him down. Sans stumbled, and the Blaster fell with, until he managed to save it from falling straight to the floor.

"[geez…you could've told me about this…]"

"[My apologies, Sans. I suppose I am more used to it than you. Don't go _skullking_ about it right now,]" Gaster replied with a slim smile. Sans almost choked on a laugh as he commanded the Blaster to rise and align over his shoulder. He felt the grin on his face widen. _Things were great like this…_

Sans copied his father's hand motion and allowed his blue magic to surge. He found the Blaster waiting eagerly for it. _If only they could have stayed…_

Sans couldn't follow exactly what happened, but he heard the Blaster fire over his shoulder and obliterate the dust of the dummy. Feeling himself on the verge of blacking out, he quickly slapped the back of his left mitten causing the Blaster to go into idle mode. _Stayed…_

As Sans fell to one knee he heard Gaster calling his name. He just needed a little breather after using so much magic. Really should have trained more, but what could he say? Recently Sans had taken up the practice of taking breaks from work every now and then.

 

"[ **STAYED?** ]"

The grating voice caused Sans to wake up in the lab. Papyrus could be heard banging on the door yelling for him to stop napping. Dinner was ready, but Sans was pretty sure the time was early morning.

He pushed away the blueprints, the sense of safety gone. Adrenaline replaced it, and he had to spend a few minutes settling down. When Sans surfaced, Papyrus could tell something was different about him. It always happened whenever his brother went to work.


	3. Catharsis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the part where Papyrus gets caught up in Sans' turmoil over being used as a way for Gaster to remember things about himself he couldn't on his own.

Sans sat on the bare bed with his back against the wall. The room remained dark like always. He had been woken up from sleep, like always.

 **Recalling. Redacted.** The meaning of the words were worthless. Right now, Sans simmered in his emotions. No, this didn't feel like simmering; he was drowning inside of his own mind. The memories were really working him to the bone this time around.

As the memories swelled up so did the adrenaline. The blue magic in Sans' body reacted and began to cause his left pupil to glow. Soon, he found himself falling as much as he felt like drowning. The truth about these timelines being doomed, one after another, starting and stopping. It was a heavy weight to carry besides remembering the past.

Sans wanted someone else to know.

Sans didn't care about consequences right now. Paradoxes and doomed timelines be damned. He just wanted to stop drowning.

"SANS! SANS!" Papyrus' voice grew closer and louder until the door to the room opened. Sans darted his eyes over. **Release.**

"SANS, I THOUGHT I MIGHT…UH… WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT?" Papyrus was framed by the light of the house. The way his shadow cast across the floor into the room kind of scared him. He wanted to reach over and flip the lights on, but the thought of seeing Sans with the lights on scared him more. There was safety in quasi-darkness.

"hey bro. i got a joke for ya. it'll be real quick."

"SANS, I'M NOT SURE-"

"what d'you call a skeleton stuck within a timeloop?" The silence which followed became broken by the crackling sound of magic. Sans' attention appeared to be on Papyrus, but the magic, when it lept from him, attacked instead the pile of socks by the door. They rose up and turned into a tornado. Maybe at a different time it would have been funny to see.

Right then, Papyrus felt chilled down to the soul at seeing his brother acting this way. The magic gave the room a blue glow, and he could see Sans sitting there with one pupil glowing in a way he had never seen before. The expression on his face remained oddly vacant, and the smile static.

"…sans. get it? because "sans" means "without," and he's stuck "within" the timeloop? so he exists both within and without time?"

The staring became unbearable to Papyrus. He wanted it to stop, and for everything in the room to stop. Fear started growing quickly inside him. If anyone could see the taller skeleton's eyes they would have noticed an orange glow.

Sans couldn't see because he became busy looking beyond the present. He looked into the past, and future, and was babbling about both. Somehow, this felt better than drowning the truth inside himself.

Everything stopped when he noticed Papyrus had managed to pull him in a hug. Sans slumped and stopped talking when he felt the absence of the bed beneath him. Replacing it was his brother's familiar arms wrapped tight around him and holding him up in the air.

The magic inside himself winked out. Sans wrapped his arms loosely around Papyrus's neck. He tilted his skull against his brother's before speaking,

"…sorry pap. i just… i can't exactly…"

"[SANS. I DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU WERE TELLING ME. IF THIS TURNS OUT TO BE ANOTHER PRANK ACROSS TIME AND SPACE I'LL HAVE TO PUNISH YOU BECAUSE… BECAUSE YOU REALLY SCARED ME BACK THERE.]" The fact Papyrus reverted to their native language caught Sans' attention. He straightened up a little and replied,

"[bro i'm really sorry for that. won't do it again, i swear.]"

"[GOOD. I NEED YOU HERE, SANS. I NEED THE LAZY BROTHER WHO TELLS REALLY BAD JOKES THAT MAKE ME SMILE.]"

Sans smiled genuinely at the compliment. As he was continuing to be held aloft, he noticed Papyrus had not moved from the doorway. How did Papyrus lift him off the bed? And why was there a sock tornado in the corner? Man, he really lost his touch with reality back there.

"ALSO, BROTHER, I ORIGINALLY CAME UP HERE TO TELL YOU SOMETHING."

"tell me what, bro?"

"YOU LEFT YOUR QUICHE IN THE OVEN WITHOUT IT BEING ON. SO I TURNED IT ON FOR YOU!"

"oh. well. that explains the smell."


	4. Renaissance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This final part takes place post-Pacifist ending with a surprise main character. Involves some spoilers from the Genocide route.

Sans sat up soon as his eyes opened. He found himself sitting in a bed that wasn't his. The room didn't look like his either. Looking around in the dark, trying to remember, he found a lamp next to him on a nightstand. He flicked it on because, for once, the shadows weren't comforting.

Seeing the room bathed in light, Sans remembered where he was. This was a house on the surface Toriel and Asgore had gotten together. They didn't sleep in the same room so that explained why there were many convenient single bedrooms. Sans and his brother had yet to find a place where they could stay so they were crashing with Toriel, Asgore, and...Frisk. Frisk was here, too.

The bed he sat on belonged to Asgore. Sans tried to talk him out of it, but the old king wouldn't have it. Big guy was probably fast asleep on the couch. Papyrus...? Where was Papyrus again? Right, having a "sleepover" with Frisk by sleeping on their floor. **Frisk.**

Sans looked down upon feeling something on his rib cage. He saw his left hand resting there tracing a diagonal line. It was the last thing in his dream before he woke up. He saw himself die from a slash across the chest... Did something happen to another him in a different timeline? Was it a memory from his past self?

The room started trembling around him. Sans could feel the distinct disconnect from reality happening. He questioned if the disconnect was a memory as well? Did he really exist, or was everything just a jumble of memories by now? Sans couldn't answer the outpour of questions springing up in his mind. He merely sat frozen to the bed as time ticked by.

 

Toriel exited her room. She knew she shouldn't worry so much about Frisk considering they took good care of themselves, but her mind wouldn't rest until she knew the little one was sleeping well. Muffling her footsteps, because of the late hour of the night, Toriel walked down the hallway stopping when she saw light out from underneath a door. It wasn't from Frisk's room; it was the room being occupied by Sans. Why was he awake?

Toriel walked to the door and found it unlocked. Peeking inside, she saw Sans sitting up in bed a hand across his chest. The expression on his face was frozen, except for the way blue magic danced in his eyes.

"Sans?" Toriel called out softly. The skeleton didn't seem to react to hearing her. She stepped inside the room and shut the door. Whatever was happening it didn't bode well.

"Sans," Toriel called out again taking careful steps towards him. She didn't know exactly what kind of magic he used, but she was sure it probably related to his brother. She didn't need him attacking aimlessly because he suddenly felt threatened.

 

Sans distantly heard a voice calling out to him. He felt the sensation of being touched by something soft and...fuzzy? The sensation brought him a little out of his stupor. How long had he been trying to answer the impossible questions? Maybe if he concentrated on the sensation he could make them go away. He knew he had to stop.

Toriel watched as Sans came back to his senses. The magic disappeared from his eyes, and he looked over at her surprised.

"whoa. didn't expect to see royalty after that."

"Hm, Sans, are you feeling all right?" She gave him a tired smile.

"just peachy, toriel. how 'bout you?" Toriel sighed and, kneeling at his bedside, dragged Sans into a hug.

"I'll be fine in the morning. If you have trouble going back to sleep, don't be afraid to ask me for help," she said before letting him go and standing to take her leave. Sans watched the former queen go in silence.

He remembered there were nice things that happened whenever they got to the surface. If only he could remember all the precious moments like these...


End file.
